Seed catalogue

Marketing has changed a great deal over the span of my lifetime. I’m no expert in marketing, but it is impossible to ignore the impact that the Internet has had on how goods and services are advertised and sold. There are many things that we order online and have delivered to our home, and the pandemic has increased how much shopping we do online. Still, we try hard to support local businesses. We never were much for shopping at big box stores. We’re not boycotting Amazon, but when we can see a way to purchase things other places, we often do.

When we began our ministry, the congregations we served had two items in their budget for advertising: a yellow pages ad and a weekly newspaper advertisement. I remember when we first started questioning those items in the church budget. There were defenders of the practice. The feeling was that both made the church visible in the community and helped those new to the community to find us. I don’t know how many times I heard, “I go straight to the church advertisements when I get my newspaper and when I don’t see our church there, I feel like we aren’t keeping up with those who are.”

Of course, the new people in our community weren’t reading the newspaper. Those who did occasionally look at it weren’t drawn the church advertisements. The year we finally stopped all newspaper advertisements we added more new members than we had in previous years. It wasn’t long after that the leading answer to the question, “How did you find out about our church?” was “Your web page.”

Slowly, but surely, churches were embracing new media and new ways of reaching people. Then the pandemic struck and we made radical changes very quickly. I went from occasionally looking at FaceBook on my own time to spending time at work on FaceBook every day. Churches made big investments in upgrading technology. Congregations purchased video cameras and the software and hardware to operate them. We learned to integrate live and prerecorded elements in the same worship service.

Once we made the plunge into social media and remote worship, it seems that there is no going back. Members of the church staff are working remotely from home, but the technology team is at the church, pulling wires, checking connections, testing audio and visual equipment and preparing for the challenges of online worship. In my new job, one of my regular tasks involves using my phone or an iPad to respond to online comments during the worship service. I used to leave all of my devices in my office when I went into a worship service. I had no need of their distraction. Now I’m using my devices to connect with people who are worshiping remotely.

However, yesterday, we got a bit of a flashback to the way things used to be. A seed catalogue arrived in our mail. It felt really good to walk to the mailbox, insert the key and open the door to discover a printed catalogue with color pictures of all kinds of fruits and vegetables and flowers that can be ordered for spring planting. Of course, I still haven’t adjusted to the seasons out here. As I write this morning, it is raining. Our daughter-in-law has been working for a couple of weeks at pruning. Folks are starting to talk about spring plantings. And it is January.

Of course seed catalogues have always arrived long before time to plant. Pouring over seed catalogues and making garden plans is part of late winter. One good seed catalogue and a day when the temperature is in the mid fifties is enough to give me spring fever.

Over the years, I’ve purchased a lot of seeds from farm and garden stores. I’ve purchased plants from nurseries and put them into my garden. But I have also ordered my share of seeds and plants from mail order sources. There is something very tempting about looking at the beautiful pictures of perfect flowers and berries and huge fresh vegetables fresh from the garden.

Results may vary. I’ve grown three- and four-inch carrots from a seed package that has a picture of foot-long carrots on it. I’ve grown “giant” sunflowers that weren’t as tall as I am. And I’m not a tall person. There have been years when my pumpkin patch produced only two or three pumpkins. Those years are exciting because there have also been years when I didn’t harvest a single pumpkin. I’m not the world’s best gardener. I tend to be excited about preparing the soil and planting and a bit more reluctant about weeding. I’ve been known to take a vacation when a dedicated gardener would be hand watering every day. I’m not blaming the people who print the seed catalogues for my lack of gardening success.

What the seed catalogues do for me is to inspire my dreaming. Perhaps this is a year when I will be more attentive to my garden. We won’t be taking a big trip this year like we did last year and when we go to visit our daughter and her family we’ll be flying, not driving. And, I keep telling myself, we have a small yard now. We don’t have a big area for gardening, so I can keep it small. A small garden will be less work.

Hope springs eternal for me when the seed catalogues start arriving.

I don’t know if folks younger than I do all of their seed shopping online. I suspect that the seed companies have great web sites. But I do know that the print catalogues are just the right kind of marketing for me. I pour over them with attention that I don’t find for the Internet. The seed catalogue we got yesterday is in the kitchen. I’m likely to read it at the breakfast table this morning.

Of course the seed catalog has information about their web site, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts on the cover. There is information about how to order online. I’m just nostalgic enough, however, that I’m likely to use the paper form at the back of the catalogue, put it in an envelope with and old-fashioned check, put a postage stamp on it and drop it in the mailbox. It seems like a good thing to do while I wait for spring.

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